Do you know
this funny little bird?

Wiithaa is the aboriginal name of a strange bird using every resources around him to build the most beautiful nest he can.He uses twigs as well as flowers, fruits and shells, but also packaging papers, straws and plastic caps!

What if our economy was working like Nature?

In Nature, there is no waste, everything is resource, everything is food for another organism, things work in a circular, symbiotic and ecosystemic way.

Thinking and doing in a systemic way, taking into account all interactions, will make us perceive waste as resource, will enable us to cooperate effectively, to optimize more than maximize, to prosper in adequation with the laws of the universe.

Design and biomimicry
at the core of our methodology

Our methodology inspires from design thinking, theorized in Stanford, and from biomimicry which inspires from Nature’s 3.8 billion years of R&D. By building on your raison d’ être and by involving the different stakeholders of the company, we enable you to co-create, test and launch virtuous products and services.

Our methodology of innovation articulates around tools and techniques of creativity, co-creation, prototyping that help a strong holistic, collaborative and game-changing reflexion.

Eco-design

Wako is a single product company, it produces the PlaRain®. It is used as a filter for septik tanks. Now, the product knows new competitors with modern technologies. Wako asked to Wiithaa to find new opportunities to create new opportunities for the company.

Wiithaa applied the Upcycling Shell, the Wiithaa’s methodology, and found new applications for the PlaRain®. By discovering the Wako’s region, Wiithaa even found interesting industrial waste to develop an ambitious new bioplastic.

3D printing workshop

During the Blabladay, Wiithaa run a workshop in order to co-create with people useful objects for their car.
The purpose of the workshop was to improve the car user-experience by enabling to create objects with a 3D printer for the car, like for instance a smartphone holder at the back headrests. The workshop happened all day on the bank of the Seine in Paris at the rhythm of 3D prints of objects.

Scenography

For the grand opening of the Qwartz Mall, built by Altarea Cogedim, Wiithaa was ask to make a giant chandelier made only of 3D printed objects. Designed by Pierric Verger, the structure was made entirely at Ici Montreuil and enables to welcome 3D printed objects made by the visitors of the mall.

Team Building

For its annual seminar, the Hopscotch agency wanted to raise awareness of their teams to design thinking. By building on its name hopscotch and its meaning, Wiithaa designed a full day of co-creation of a giant hopscotch to illustrate the process of the agency from briefing to production and analytics. Supervized by designers and craftmen of Ici Montreuil the Hopscotch teams discovered upcyling through reclaiming of metal, wood, leather, hair, earthenware, fabric et the conception with a 3D printer.

Upcycling workshop

During the sustainble development week, Nespresso wanted to raise awareness of plastic treatment in the office for its employees in a playful way. With plastics cups used at water fountains, Sander Samuel Estonian designer, enabled participants of the workshop to create light suspensions without any glue or screws.

Street workshop

Requested by Vilogia, Wiithaa in collaboration with 2 local designers, Fabien Jonckheere and Marc Bony, organised an upcycling street workshop in a poor district near Lille. Kids and grown-ups were invited to repair, transform and hack their objects and furniture with designers rather than throw them away.

Scenography

Thanks to an original idea of the Passage Piéton agency, Wiithaa with Jeanne Massart set up an eco-desgined scenography made of reclaimed and new objects and furniture for a pop-up shop. At the end of the event, all the elements were collected and upcycled.

Scenography

Thanks to an original idea of the Raymond Interactive agency, and in collaboration with Arnaud Maurer and Sten Ridarch, Wiithaa produced the design of the Animal Instinct scenography. By collecting elements of the previous scenography and by finding a solution to add value to the creation made for the event, Wiithaa reduced waste from the previous scenography and raised money for a biodiversity program in Africa.

Upcycling workshop

At the Alinéa open air market, organised and imagined by the Passage Piéton agency, in collaboration with Victoria Campion, Wiithaa offered upcycling workshops to the public with the help of designers to personnalize and hack objects from the brand.

Exhibition and workshops

During the Designer’s Days 2013, during a week, the Gallery S. Bensimon welcomed Wiithaa to present about fifteen emblematic upcycling projects. Exhibition and open air workshops were at the program and offered a window to our work and approach.

Exhibition and workshops

Make it up, the replanned obsolescence festival, co-organized with nod-A and Weave Air gathered for 3 days designers, engineers, electronic geeks and other makers to make DIY useful and connected objects with upcycling.

Exhibition and workshops

During the Pop Up Design of Lille 3000, Wiithaa put forward 4 designers during 10 days. In a giant scenography designed only with locally reclaimed materials and furniture, continuous upcycling workshops were offered to the public to change our ideas about waste and its value.

Eco-design tool

« Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous. » said Leonard da Vinci to his students.

To discover biomimicry and design like the Nature does, what could be more inspiring than a game?
Wiithaa gives you one of its idea generator tool.

Why 3D printing will make the circular economy?

There is a massive buzz around the 3D printing. Even if the first 3D printer was created 30 years ago, we’re just discovering the beginning of its potential. We think it could be a very interesting tool to make the economy more circular.

White book on planned obsolescence

We organised workshops during a festival on planned obsolescence, Make it up. After all these experiences during two week-ends, Weave Air, nod-A and Wiithaa wrote a book with several ideas to solve this problem. (The book is only in French version)

Who are we?

Nicolas Buttin

Co-founder / Designer

Trained in design thinking in London, I travelled in Asia, Africa, Americas and the Middle East. I am an optimist, I believe in the people and their diversity to change the status quo. My work as a designer is around facilitation and interaction to find together the most relevant solutions we all need.

Brieuc Saffré

Co-founder / Marketing

Trained in business and marketing, I wrote a book on the raison d’être and brand utility. I am also a big traveller, I lived in Australia and explored Japan. My expertise revolves around new business model generation, road-mapping and strategic development.

Jean-Christophe Pic

Co-founder / Business

Finance director in the green economy and author of numerous books about business models and green tech. I am also a member of the faculty of La sorbonne and I teach in San Francisco. I bring my global and international experience to the team as a close adviser.

Edouard Gomez-Vaëz

Co-founder / Engineer

Originally trained as an engineer, I am also trained as a designer. This double experience helped me a lot in the well-known world of start-ups that needs both structure and creative genius. I mainly help the team on technical, managerial and engineering aspects of the circular economy.

Wiithaa network

Designers & Makers

Designers, architects, biologists, chemists, operational managers and other makers, they are more than a hundred people in our network ready to make the circular economy happen. Do not hesitate to join us